126 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



often bask in the sun among boulders on the sheltered slopes of hills, and in hotter 

 weather their favourite midday occupation is taking dust-baths in the sun, or preening 

 their feathers and dozing in the shade of overhanging foliage. 



The food of Ring-necked pheasants varies with the seasons. A summary of crops 

 examined reveals a diet somewhat like the following — 



January : chiefly hibernating insects and grubs, especially toward the south, with a 

 little seed. 



February : insects and young spring greens, with very little seed. 



March : grubs and green food. 



April : greens, insects and early spring grain. 



May : adults, insects and quantities of seeds and grains ; young, small insects and 

 grit. 



June : adults, dry grain, crops and greens ; young, insects and greens. 



July : grain and green food, toward the end of the month begin raids on rice- 

 lands. 



August : rice and greens ; late in the month begin feeding in the bean-fields. 



September : chiefly cotton-seed with greens and rice, becoming fat toward end of 

 month. 



October : chiefly beans, acorns, Spanish chestnuts, autumn seeds, buckwheat, etc. 



November : acorns, cotton-seeds, rice gleanings, and the seeds and insects of the 

 river reeds. 



December : grubs and insects, acorns and beans, with very little cotton-seed. 



North of the Yangtze where kaoliang, or tall millet, is grown, pheasants come in 

 numbers around the threshing-floors, and at sundown, after the coolies have gone, they 

 eagerly pick up the stray grain. They are very fond both of the tall and dwarf millet, and 

 excellent shooting is to be had in the stubble-fields of these crops throughout November 

 and December. 



Ring-necks are polygamous, and cocks in the prime of life may have a harem of 

 four to eight hens. In regions where hens have been indiscriminately shot off, the birds 

 may be sometimes seen in pairs, and I believe that even under ordinary conditions some 

 individual cocks are consistently monogamous, and care for their single mate and her 

 brood. 



Where young pines and firs abound, the favourite nesting-places will be found on 

 the beds of soft needles, and second choice is usually in a dense clump of feather-grass. 

 No nesting material is ever provided, the needles or grass stems being pressed down, 

 or packed up by the weight of the bird's body into a rim of sorts. 



The eggs deposited by wild Ring-necks number from six to twelve, with sixteen as 

 a very unusual record for a single bird. Two broods a year are not unusual, but a third 

 effort is due only to the early destruction of one or both of the preceding. The breed- 

 ing period diff'ers with the latitude, and there may be a month's difference in the average 

 nesting of a Kalgan and a Foochow bird. 



The chicks in general habits and life resemble those of other forms, and differ 

 from domestic chicks chiefly in their greater wariness and activity. They bask in the 

 sun, soon learn to hunt insects for themselves, rush to the protection of their mother's 



